Anger Management

Last night, I almost lost my temper with Chubbs. It's been more than a year, almost two, since I've attacked him, and I used to attack him once or twice a week, so you can see what a big accomplishment that is. Last night, I was getting pets from Mom, Chubbs pushed past me. I turned to growl at him, and Mom sent us both to our crates and made us stay there for a half hour. That's our cooling down time. It worked. I've been fine ever since.

I've been attacking Chubbs since he hit adolescence, and before my mom was a dog trainer, she didn't understand what to do. It got much worse when we moved to California and lived in a much smaller house. Then, I went from attacking him once a month to once a week. But then my mom was becoming a dog trainer, and the woman training her figured out what was going on: Chubbs was instigating and I was losing my temper.

Many people don't know that there dogs are instigating fights. Did you know that staring is considered very offensive in the dog world? It is. Chubbs would lie in the floor and stare at me until I snapped. And since he's "soo cute" (Mom's words, NOT mine), he would get away with it. My mom's trainer gave her a several things to do: punish Chubbs when he got attacked, teach me to go to a "calm down" place where Chubbs can't go, train both of us a little better so we listened better and try abandonment training.

My mom gave me several places where I could go to be away from Chubbs. I have a room in the garage, I have a crate hidden behind a bookcase so I can be alone, and she sometimes puts me in the bedroom with the door closed when I'm stressed. She started sending Chubbs to his crate every time he stared at me. And every time I got upset, I went to my crate. She handfed me my meals for a month while teaching me commands so I had to look to her for all my food. Then, once she had done all of that, she started abandonment training. Since the attacks were only happening around her, when I would attack Chubbs, she would start yelling, storm out the door, slam it behind her and drive away. This taught us that fighting got us the opposite of what we wanted. Instead of getting Mom to ourselves, she left both of us!

Combining all these things really worked. Now, when I get upset, I go to my crate or bedroom on my own. Sometimes, I still have a bad week, but we both know how to handle it. Chubbs is still the same ole jerk, but I'm better, and that's what counts!

Love, Muggsy